Welcome to Finite Incantatem, an AU Canonless Harry Potter RP set in 2022. The wizarding world is on the brink of chaos. Anti-muggle sentiment is stronger than ever and has begun taking a foot hold in multiple countries. It's only a matter of time until war breaks out. Pick your side and join us today!

The third SPELLCRAFT Trial has begun here.
Champions get ready for a physical challenge!

02.11.18

First and foremost, thank you all for your patience as we've been down an administrator while Cor has taken a break to address some real life problems. <3 All hail Lacey for holding down the fort as the lone admin for the past 1-2 months! The Activity Check is officially over! If you've lost a character, be sure to visit the ACTIVITY CHECK thread to find out how to get them back.

01.01.18

Happy New Year, Tatem! We're kicking off 2018 with a site wide ACTIVITY CHECK! Be sure to save your characters by February 2, 2018!

11.19.17

We are going to begin opening up to new members and the public! Please excuse our mess as we still finish transferring things from the Proboards site. Information pages are slowly, but surely being transferred over. If there are any incorrect tags, missing information, misaligned tables, broken code, or anything odd in general, please contact Admin Cor.

10.30.2017

Under massive construction! Please begin transferring your accounts, applications, and threads to the new Jcink site from Proboards.

credits

skin coded by MISS TEXAS. at CAUTION. toggle sidebar is from SUBDEVO and custom forum structure (cfs) script is from BLACK. mini profile coded by TAY at CAUTION. application template coded by HOLLY at CAUTION. info boards template coded by VANESSA at SHINE. header graphics by LACEY. site plot & content created with love by CORINNE and LACEY.

Staring out of a second-story window of a townhouse, a one-eyed orange tabby cat weaving between her ankles, Gabby decided she might actually really like Copenhagen if she were allowed to actually explore it and go outside for more than a couple of minutes a day. Throughout her childhood, she’d been to several European cities. Berlin, Barcelona, Madrid, London… all places that her father’d generally had to go to for work, and would bring his family along for the ride. They’d never come this far north, though, and as she stared down at the bustling street down below, she found it impossible to think about much of anything else.

For the past month (had it only been a month?), Gabby had found it was all she could think about, and there wasn’t much else to occupy her time with. All of her textbooks, all of her homework, she’d lost in the fire. All of her clothes, her pets, her wand… And it wasn’t as though she could go out shopping to replace all these things. When Jeremiah Ian Murray had brought them here, claiming it to be a safehouse belonging to one of his colleagues, he’d warned them that being outside wasn’t the wisest idea. Not until he and whoever was working with him could figure out who’d been behind the attack.

Gabby’s instinct had been to not care. Let them come, let them find her, and let them find out what happened when you let a Sauveterre live. Part of it had been born out of the dissociation of grief, and an arguably larger part of spite, the pure drive to just do something, anything, in retaliation for everything that had happened. Reality, though, as it turned out, was hell of a lot more complicated.

If she was beginning to go stir crazy, she said nothing. In fact, the number of words that Gabby had spoken since they’d gone into “hiding,” had been remarkably few, because she mostly didn’t trust herself to speak. She had to be strong, but the truth was she didn’t feel very strong at all. What little sleep she got was riddled with nightmares; twice she had woken up screaming, followed by what felt like hours of crying whether or not her uncle came in to check on her. She ate the bare minimum, appetite gone, and had lost several pounds since they’d gotten here. For as strong as Gabby was trying to be, she certainly looked a lot more like a shell of what she used to be.

She wasn’t paying much attention, curled up on the windowseat and staring down at the street below. So when she heard a quiet knock on the halfway open door (she didn’t like her door being closed anymore; the possibility of an escape made her feel more secure), she looked up from scratching the cat’s ears to find the figure of Laurent Gaspard Sauveterre in the doorway.

A part of her genuinely doesn’t understand why her uncle is here. Why he decided to come with her into isolation, into virtual death. The newspapers had declared her dead, and it still made her stomach clench to think about what all her friends probably thought, because another condition of Agent Murray’s protection had been that as few people as possible were to know about her existence. For now. He’d offered her a place to stay, a place to go, and Uncle Laurie had volunteered to go with her without seemingly a second thought. She didn’t understand why, when she knew he probably had a lot to deal with. And he’d lost a lot of his family, too. She was sorry she couldn’t have saved any of them-

Gabby was more thankful for his presence than she could ever express in words.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, absentmindedly slipping into French on pure instinct. She didn’t think she’d spoken a word of English since she’d had to explain what had happened to Agent Murray. If there were something seriously off, she was fairly sure Uncle Laurie wouldn’t look half as calm as he did now, but there was still an expression of… something on his face. Something that wasn’t the normal pity and sadness that she’d grown somewhat used to.

Ever since the night his fireplace had flashed unexpectedly and deposited his sobbing, injured niece on the floor of his study in Greece, Laurent had only reluctantly let her out of his eye or earshot. He knew she would need the semi privacy to grieve, but he was always alert for a sign that he was needed. He woke her out of her nightmares, tried to engage her when she seemed deep in her despair. None of it really helped her heal, of course, but it made him feel useful.

Merlin, the scare she had given him that night. It had taken him a while to calm her down enough to get anything coherent out of her. By the time the special agent had arrived, near morning, to inform him of his family’s death, he’d gotten the general idea.

If it had been anyone else, Laurent might not have revealed Gabby’s presence to him. She had escaped the extermination of her whole family, and there was a possibility that her life was still at risk. But Laurent remembered Jeremiah Ian Murray from his days at Hogwarts. He’d been a bright young man, focused on a career protecting people and hunting dark wizards. He reminded Laurent of Gabby’s young man, in some ways. And apparently had done quite well for himself in his career, and had made a name for himself. Laurent had decided to trust him, and let him speak to Gabby.

Agent Murray had decided, after talking to both himself and Gabby, that Gabby might indeed be at risk and that the best thing for her would for his organization to send her into hiding until they got to the bottom of this. Laurent didn’t think twice about insisting on going with her. Gabby had always been his favorite. With no children of his own, he’d looked at her as a sort of surrogate daughter. More importantly, however, she’d just lost almost everyone in her family. He was all she had left, and he would be damned if they got separated now.

Life in what essentially amounted to witness protection was exceedingly dull. Laurent was sure under any other circumstances, Gabby would be driving both of them mad by climbing the walls. As it was, he barely heard a peep out of her. Laurent was worried, but also lacked any idea on how to get her to open up. Or even if she needed to, or if this was a good way to heal. He wished he could bring Lucas Grant Vanetti and Cooper Felix Santiago in to visit her; those boys had been her best friends for years, and Laurent imagined they knew her better than anyone else. But since he couldn’t, he did what he thought was best at any given time and hoped he was some comfort to her.

This morning, he’d received a communication from Agent Murray that required them to have a talk that Laurent wasn’t looking forward to. He steeled himself and knocked on the open door of the room Gabby was staying in. “Oui, nothing else has happened,” he immediately assured her in French. He crossed the room, sitting down near her.

“That is actually what I must speak to you about. Agent Murray…” Laurent paused, shook his head and then continued. “He says he is no closer to finding out who attacked our family. That he is getting stonewalled by the French Ministry. Apparently they would rather handle it themselves, and he is not confident that the case will be solved without new leads.” That was difficult to process, the fact that there was probably no justice for the Sauveterre family. But not as hard as what he had to say next.

“He believes it may be time to make this permanent, Gabby. He’d move you again, and give you a new identity. Gabrielle Sauveterre would, as far as anyone outside the three of us would know, be dead. He assures me that this new identity would protect you completely, and that you’d be able to live a normal life instead of hiding like this. He said he is willing to keep hiding you like this if you wish, but… he wanted me to impress upon you that you should not be optimistic about being safe soon. It would mean being in hiding and on the run for years, potentially.”

He reached out a hand and placed it over hers. “But, you’re an adult now Gabby. It’s your decision to make, and we will respect it.”

Staring at nothing with a faraway look in her eyes had become a normal thing for Gabby, and in many ways, she had become something akin to a ghost herself. Pale, gaunt, she didn’t really feel like she was alive. She was never hungry, wasn’t thirsty. The only times she did eat and drink were when Uncle Laurent set something in front of her and refused to take his eyes off her until it was gone. Even then, food didn’t taste like anything, and drinking water only halfway diluted the constant headache she seemed to have. There was a part of her that was convinced that the ache from her broken ribs had never gone away, a part of her that was convinced she was still in that house. Maybe this was all just a dream. Maybe she really was dead.

It was that faroff look, the distant look of pain and exhaustion, that she regarded Laurent Gaspard Sauveterre with as he entered the room. There had once been a time when she’d felt as though Laurent was her only family in the world, the kind that mattered anyway, because he’d been the only family she genuinely liked sometimes. She’d taken a lot for granted back then, and she felt like she was taking him for granted now. Like she was taking advantage of him. Half of Gabby was expecting someone to burst in and take him away too, while the other half raged against the very notion with the silent threat, Let them try.

She’d lost a lot. More than she wanted to think about. She refused to lose her uncle too.

Gabby didn’t move as he crossed the room and took a seat, though the tabby that had been weaving around her legs seemingly took offense to the presence of someone else, and darted off to the shadows. Instead, she watched. And listened.

The only sign that his words upset her was how her hand clenched into a fist for only a moment. Gabby swallowed, and looked back out the window at the revelation that there probably wouldn’t be any justice for what had happened. They didn’t know who had done it. She opened her mouth, as if to say something, as if to protest, before she fell silent again. Gabby didn’t even know if it was worth it to say anything. But, still, she swallowed and clenched her fists even tighter, jaw tightening.

There’d been a group of them. A group. Probably at least ten. And nobody had found anything? The anger that kindled deep in her belly was a ghostly reminder of who she’d been before all this. The wrath over injustice, over the inability of others to handle a situation. What was the French Ministry doing? And why couldn’t Agent Murray figure something out? Gabby took one deep breath. Two. Three. And just like that, the anger was once again replaced by a sense of defeat and desolation.

But then Uncle Laurie kept talking. Gabby’s eyes snapped to his as soon as she recognized the seriousness of the situation… which was all but right away. The words like ‘new identity’ and ‘permanent’ seemed to wash over her, and the eighteen-year old girl swallowed hard at the massive decision that now lay before her.

In the end, though, it wasn’t that hard of one to make. You’ll always be my daughter. Gabby gritted her teeth. I love you both very much. Taking a new identity, a new name, it felt like a betrayal of some kind, and almost immediately, she murmured, “I don’t want to be anybody else.” It was true, she supposed, that she hadn’t been alive for the longest of times. Just eighteen years, but for the entirety of those eighteen years, she had been Gabrielle Louise Sauveterre, the eldest of six, the heir to Alphonse and Penelope, and despite all the crap that had come with it… it was just who she was.

It didn’t feel right to throw all of that away, even now.

She looked down as Uncle Laurent’s hand covered her own, and Gabby instinctively had to swallow back the urge to launch herself into an embrace. She didn’t really understand why he had come with her into hiding, why he seemed so intent to stay at her side when this couldn’t be pleasant for him. He’d just lost most of his family, too, and her stomach rolled to think that she had also been, as she saw it, directly responsible for the deaths of half of his nieces and nephews. She should have been quicker, or smarter, she should have known-

“They… they took a lot,” she managed to choke out, taking a deep shaky breath as she went. She would not cry. Gabby jutted her chin out as if in defiance of something unseen as she looked her uncle dead in the face and said, “They won’t take my name, too.”

Then came the question of safety, of whether or not she needed to stay in hiding. The deadened, saddned part of her didn’t really care. Hide her or not hide her, it didn’t make all that much of a difference. But then she looked up at her uncle, and saw a man who had a life outside this… whatever this was. Townhouse? Prison? Hideaway? Her stomach rolled again with guilt, and she didn’t…

Gabby thought. And after another long moment of thinking, she spoke again. “But I don’t think I want to stay in hiding, either,” she said quietly. “I’m tired. I want my life again, and I want to finish school.” Sort of. She was mostly saying that last part in honor of Uncle Laurent. “And you have to go back. It means a lot to you.” There were also other reasons, much more selfish reasons, that she had for wanting to go back to school. And maybe… maybe, there, she could start to forget. She swallowed. “I don’t want to hide from them anymore.”

Family had always been… a rather complicated thing for Laurent. His own parents hadn’t been warm people, and his older brother was positively domineering. Even his relationship with his own wife - who he hadn’t seen outside of family functions in years - was cold and distant. His sister-in-law and nieces and nephews were a breath of fresh air, comparatively. But even still, he hadn’t been that close to any of them. Except for Gabby.

When she had been placed in his charge during her education at Hogwarts, he’d looked at the stubborn girl across his desk and despaired of ever taming the wildness her father claimed she had. But he’d also seen what Alphonse had not, that she was a scared, lonely child who only wanted to please her father. Laurent could relate. He’d taken her under his wing then, and had tried to give her the love and support that she craved from her father. It probably wasn’t the same, but he tried.

After all, it wasn’t in the cards for him to have children of his own. He had love to spare.

As much grief as he had for the lost of his brother’s family, he could still only imagine what Gabby was going through. To have lost the whole family all at once was bad, but to have been there for it… to have witnessed it? No, it defied imagination. Laurent couldn’t do anything for that pain except be there for her, and be a reminder that she still had a family even amid this loss. The decision she had to make was hard, but she wouldn’t be alone in it. He would go into this hiding with her, if that was her decision.

“I know, mon cheri. But this is not a decision to be made out of pride. There is no shame in any of these paths we take. But whichever you do, I will go with you. I don’t want you to worry about that.” He rested a hand on hers, squeezing gently. They were family, and they’d stay that way.

Laurent nodded solemnly when Gabby made her decision, and then went on to talk about her desire to not stay in hiding anymore. He shook his head when he brought up him. “You mean a lot to me, Gabrielle. No job means more than that. If this is what you want to do, we will do it, but don’t worry about me in your decision. I only want to keep you safe.”

He was quiet for a moment. He definitely respected Gabby not wanting to hide anymore. However.“I understand, but I do think that if we are going to do this, we should be cautious about it. I would suggest that when we go back, we tell everyone that you and I were together out of the country during the attack. Those who were there will know that that’s not true, but I hardly think they’ll go to the press with that information. Hopefully just that willingness to deny knowledge of what happened will persuade them not to come after you. I also suggest that we don’t go back until the school term begins. We’ll be safe there, at the very least.”

It was a brutal truth that, in the end, Gabby had been coming to realize that nothing she could have done would have earned her father’s pride. For seventeen years, she’d fought against impossible expectations. She’d tried everything imaginable, including breaking up with a boyfriend she’d… well, she still... yeah. Thinking about Cooper wasn’t the best route to go right now. All in all, she had been all but a pariah in her own family, different from what they’d wanted and maybe even needed. Maybe that was why they were all dead. But nothing, not even making herself better now, could change the fact that they were gone. Gabby and her family hadn’t gotten along. But that didn’t make it hurt any less that she’d never see them again.

But… she hadn’t lost everything.

Angrily wiping at tears that threatened to fall (how had she not cried herself dry yet?), hearing a term of affection from her uncle that her own father had never called her, Gabby genuinely couldn’t fathom what she’d done to earn Uncle Laurent’s loyalty. She looked at him, wary and curious, as he offered to go with her wherever she chose to go. “But you don’t have to,” she said, half in protest and half out of pure confusion. She didn’t want her uncle to give up everything for her, and she didn’t know why he would.

Still, her decision was made. Gabby hated the idea of spending the rest of her life in hiding, regardless if she was living a life under a different name or not. It felt wrong, and shameful, regardless of what Uncle Laurie had said about shame. Whether or not she’d gotten along with her family, she was a Sauveterre, a long line of French witches and wizards. Gabby didn’t want that to change. She supposed that, in the end, it was just a name, and maybe it was selfish of her to want to keep it for herself in spite of everything she’d lost. But she didn’t want to give it up. And she wouldn’t.

Keep you safe. Gabby pressed her lips together as she listened to her uncle’s precautions, before quietly huffing. “I’m not scared of them, whoever they are,” she said, with more conviction and bravery than she’d felt in over a month. “If they want to come after me, I’ll be ready. And I won’t let them hurt anybody else.” As she said this, her hands curled into fists, and she clenched them in anger.

Then, her clench eased, and she let out a quiet sigh. “But if… if you think that’s what we should do, then…” Gabby swallowed. Could she hide what had happened? Maybe. But going back would also mean seeing- “But… is that what we’re going to have to tell everyone?” The question was loaded with at least two names of people that Gabby could think of that she knew she probably couldn’t fool. Or, at least, wouldn’t want to. If they even wanted to speak to her again, after what she’d done at the end of last year. Gabby sighed. Going back was likely going to be harder than she thought.

But she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Without warning, Gabby lurched towards her uncle and threw her arms around his shoulders. Neither of them were hugely affectionate people, given both of their upbringings, but Gabby had no other way to convey how she felt. Burying her face against him, she squeezed tightly and didn’t let go. “Merci, oncle,” she murmured, sniffling. “I- I don’t know what I’d do without you. Thank you for being here with me.” She just wished she could make it worth his while, and fix everything. It killed her that she knew that she couldn’t.